Balkan Troubles

By Walter Kish

The news this week has been dominated by more unrest in Europe’s perennial trouble spot, the Balkans. A week ago, Kosovo, an “autonomous” region of the former Yugoslavia and more recently, part of Serbia, unilaterally declared independence.  Serbians, in a show of solidarity with their government, responded with demonstrations, some violent, in the course of which the US Embassy in Belgrade was set on fire.  Even here in Toronto, local Serbians mounted demonstrations (thankfully peaceful) in front of the US Consulate in response to that country’s official recognition of Kosovo’s independence.  Most European countries, likewise, officially recognized the new Kosovo, although Canada has not yet committed itself one way or the other.  Russia, China and a few other reactionary countries with colonies and ethnic minorities seeking to gain their independence against imperialistic rule, were understandably quick to condemn the Kosovo move.

Serbia’s claims to Kosovo are based largely on ancient history when Serbians were indeed the dominant inhabitants of this region.  A number of significant events in Serbian history took place there, in particular, the much-mythologized Battle of Kosovo in the Fourteenth Century in which the Serbians were defeated by a Turkish army that led to Ottoman domination of the Balkans up until the Twentieth Century. Many Serbians view Kosovo as the “Cradle of Serbian Civilization”.  However, for most of the past few centuries, the area has become primarily the domain of ethnic Albanians.  Currently, more than 92% of the population of Kosovo is Albanian, and almost all of them have no desire to be part of Serbia. 

Subsequent to the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Serbians under the demagogic leadership of Slobodan Milosevic imposed particularly harsh and repressive rule over the restive Albanians in Kosovo, in the course of which a number of massacres and atrocities took place.  The Albanians organized the KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army, which itself was no stranger to terrorist tactics; nonetheless, the better armed and equipped Serbians were undoubtedly the victors in the bloodshed game until the UN and European Union stepped in to separate the combatants, impose peace and take over the area’s administration in 1999.  It is thus hardly surprising that the Albanians have no desire to be part of Serbia in any form.  As for the Serbs, it is hard to take their claims to Kosovo seriously, history notwithstanding, when only 5% of Kosovo’s population is Serbian.  Should events from seven hundred years ago take precedence over current political and social realities?

I was somewhat dismayed earlier by the comments of a young Toronto Serb demonstrator commenting during a news report on how Canada should refrain from supporting Kosovo’s independence because there is a parallel to Quebec’s separatist inclinations.  Anyone with a basic understanding of the political history of both Canada and the Balkans would find the comparison ludicrous. 

Aside from the fact that there has been no genocidal repression of the French in Quebec that remotely compares to what the Serbs inflicted on the Albanians in recent years, Canada has even entrenched in law the mechanism by which the Quebecois, should they so indicate in a clear referendum, could indeed peacefully separate from the rest of Canadian Confederation.  Should such a referendum clearly succeed, I sincerely doubt that we would see tanks in the streets of Quebec and Montreal preventing the Quebecois from doing so.  An understanding would be reached and the rest of Canada would strive to find a way to have cooperative and mutually beneficial relationships with a new neighbour.

The overwhelming majority of the population of Kosovo has made it clear that they wish to separate from Serbia, and if the Serbians had more common sense and concern for the future of their area, they would arrange for an orderly transition and try and negotiate the mechanisms for future economic and political cooperation that would benefit both sides. Knowing the overheated nationalism that has prevailed in this area for centuries, this unfortunately does not seem likely.

The Canadian government should recognize Kosovo and do everything it can to encourage the Serbians to cool their destructive nationalistic tendencies and start looking more at ways and means of existing more peacefully and cooperatively with their neighbours.  Prolonging centuries old feuds and neglecting the transformations that are required to make Serbia part of a cooperative and progressive European Union is a disservice to all the future generations of Serbs.